


Old Debts

by Medie



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Multi, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 05:18:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/606221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Maybe this one's for you. If you hadn't noticed, Jeff, the universe owes you one."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Debts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Azar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azar/gifts).



> thanks to skieswideopen for the beta.

He wakes to the murmur of lowered voices. 

He's known few moments of solitude in his life so it's not an uncommon occurrence. Save for one respect; they're speaking English. 

He doesn't understand it at first. He recognizes it by the cadence and the sound of the words, but the meaning escapes him. It's a sobering thought. The language of his birth is alien to him now. He hasn't thought in English in years.

The realization hurts.

It doesn't take long for the words to come back and for the gibberish to form into real language that he can understand. 

"...sure that it's him?"

"Yes. The Anla'shok have examined him by every means at their disposal and they say the same--"

"--as the Excalibur's medical personnel. Ambassador Sinclair is alive and well. Someone want to explain to me just how the hell that's possible?"

Sinclair.

He smiles at the sound of his own name and smiles wider when he realizes he knows the voice speaking it. 

"Now there is a name I thought I'd never hear again in a million years." Opening his eyes, he turns his head to take in John Sheridan's stupefied expression and Delenn's relieved smile. "Should have thought in smaller increments." 

His voice is raspy, rough with disuse and he wonders how long it's been since he's spoken to anyone. Has it literally been a thousand years or just the stasis messing with his vocal cords?

He rubs at his throat as he sits up. "I feel terrible. Don't suppose either one of you can explain just what the hell is going on?" 

John is the first to smile, boyish still despite the new lines on his face. "Well, no. To be honest, we were hoping you would tell us." 

He looks to Delenn and Jeff does as well. 

"An Earth vessel found you on an unsurveyed world," she says, but it's not that simple. He can see it in her eyes. There's more to this particular story and he can already feel the unease creeping in around the borders. Delenn is worried about something and it was no simple survey mission he landed in the middle of. "When they realized who you were, they brought you here."

"To Minbar." 

It's not a question. He recognizes the horizon through the window behind her. 

"Yes." Delenn steps closer. "And you really have no idea how you came to be there?"

He smiles and shakes his head. "I have no idea where I was." 

"What's the last thing that you do remember?" 

Jeff tries, but the memory is distant and fuzzy, and gets more so the harder he reaches for it. "No, I'm sorry. I haven't any answers for you. Only questions." 

Delenn smiles, rueful. "I believe the expression is 'the more things change' would be appropriate here."

"Yes," Jeff chuckles." I believe you're right."

*

When he's able, he goes to wash up. He's not prepared for what he finds in the reflecting glass. He looks as he did before he went back. Before he put on Valen's face and Valen's legend, settling into it with an ease that had been almost frightening. 

Looking at himself, he doesn't know how he feels about its absence. 

"Overwhelmed," he decides, turning away. Overwhelmed is a good word for all of it.

*

Delenn receives her morning briefings on a balcony, sipping tea and picking at fruit as she reads the Rangers progress in helping Earth search for a cure. At her invitation, Jeff takes to joining her. It's familiar and strange all at once, and he feels increasingly unsettled as the days pass.

"Has anyone bothered to tell Earth that the Drakh didn't create the plague?" He's spent years fighting the Shadows, years more preparing for their second assault. To have them so handily written out of history is frustrating. "They're looking for the wrong thing."

"The Shadows designed it, but their agents deployed it. At any rate, it hardly matters who Earth believes created it," Delenn says, calm. "The Rangers provide leads and clues. It isn't difficult at all to guide their steps. In time, we'll find the right installation."

"Five years isn't much time, Delenn," Jeff says, itching. "Less than that now." 

She looks at him. He's missed that look, even though it grates now. 

"Stop that."

Delenn's lips curve upward. "As you wish." Her eyes go back to her reading. "Perhaps you should just tell me what's really bothering you."

"Do you have to be so damn perceptive all the time? I hate that even more than I hate that look of yours," he grumbles, pretending not to see her laughing and pretending it doesn't warm him. It's like the sun peeking over the horizon, seeping into his skin and warming him from the inside out. As comforting as the tea they're drinking. 

"No, you don't," she says, light as air. " _Jeff_." 

He exhales, heavy, pushing the tension up out of him with the breath. "Are we _certain_? Do we know that I'm really who I think I am? There are any number of options, Delenn. I could be a clone. I could be _anyone_." 

His frustration leaks into his voice and, behind it, he finds uncertainty. He's always had a great capacity for self-doubt and introspection, but this is more. He's completely unable to trust himself and it's crippling him. Earth is under quarantine, billions of lives on the line, and he's sitting on Minbar in the midst of an identity crisis. 

He doesn't realize that he's curled his hand into a fist until Delenn's touch settles on the back of it.

Jeff looks up and finds her watching him. 

She smiles. "I suppose, old friend, that you might be right. You might be exactly as you fear."

"But?"

"One cannot clone a soul and I know the soul I see before me." She leans forward. "Would you like to see the reports? You carry traces of Minbari DNA inside you. Not as much as you once did, but it is there."

"I wish I could be sure." He turns her hand over, bringing her palm to his lips. "But it is very good to see you again."

She smiles. "It is very good to be seen." 

*

John joins them infrequently. Less than Jeff would like, but more than he imagines should be possible. He remembers the days before he left, when the war was ramping up and his Rangers were making their way across the sector, feeding reports back to Minbar. Before that, on the station, with everything and everyone going through him.

He misses it.

"I'd offer to help, but I think that would be a breach of security." 

John looks up to where Jeff is waiting, leaning against the wall, comfortable in Minbari robes. 

"Since you helped build all this, I don't see how." John sits back at his desk, brows drawing together. "This isn't about--" he sighs. " _Jeff_."

"Humor me," Jeff says, moving into the room. "I've had a rough millennium." 

John stands up, his smile returning. "Jeff, we've had you scanned from head to toe. Powerful telepaths from two races have poked around that head of yours. You're definitely you and definitely your own man. No one's pulling the strings."

"I know," Jeff sighs. "I suppose I'll believe that before long." He walks past John and looks out at the city below. "I knew my path and who I was as I walked upon it: I was building the Rangers, preparing for the Shadows return, and everything seemed so clear. Now I'm here and I have no idea why. Earth's in danger, but I can't go back there and help. I can't rejoin the Rangers and search for a cure. I'm adrift. Useless."

John comes to join him, a solid presence at his side, the fire of youth tempered into a slow burn that warms in a different way than Delenn's smile, but is no less comforting for its difference. 

"Maybe it isn't about saving the universe this time," John says, after a time. "Maybe this one's for you. If you hadn't noticed, Jeff, the universe owes you one." 

*

"Perhaps you should go to Mars," Delenn muses. "Michael is there. He runs intelligence for the Alliance." Her eyes light with mischief. "He's kept very busy with it all." 

"No, not yet. I want to see Michael, I do, but not until I'm more myself." He catches the look on her face and grins. "I saw that."

She laughs. "Saw what?"

"You've got that look again. Tell me, Delenn, do you enjoy psychoanalyzing humans?"

"Only the interesting ones," she says, grinning. 

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"You should." Her smile softens as she looks at him. He likes that look. "You know that you are always welcome with us, Jeff." She leans forward, resting a hand against his chest. His heart lies beneath her palm and he feels it start to race with her proximity. He'd never allowed himself to think of this before, when she was the ambassador and he the commander, but the temptation was always there. At first, as the only Minbari that didn't make his gut twist, then the only one to steal his breath with a look. 

" _Delenn_." 

She smiles. 

He's missed something. He has a feeling he'll like finding it.

*

She leaves him to contemplation as is the Minbari habit and he takes to the pike. It's familiar to him now and the new recruits have no idea who he used to be. He spars with them, teaches them, and watches their instructors nod with approval. 

He's still there when John enters, shrugging out of his suit coat as he does. He looks tired, distracted, and frazzled at the edges. It's as good an invitation as Jeff thinks he'll get. He lunges forward, pleased when John responds in kind and sends him skidding backward.

They duck and weave, John with his bare hands against Jeff and his pike, and it should be embarrassing how fun this is. Jeff catches himself grinning wide when they break apart, soaked to the skin with sweat.

"Had enough?" Jeff asks, the pike moving lazily before him. "You look tired, Mr. President. Might need to take a rest."

"That's not what I had in mind when I came down here," John pants, but he's grinning too. "Delenn spoke to you."

The pike stills and Jeff catches on. 

"You mean to tell me I was brought back here for us? Are you—" 

He doesn't see the hit coming, not until he's on his back with John Sheridan pressing him into the mat, grinning and halfway hard.

Jeff groans. "Really?"

"I have no idea," John says, shrugging, "but like I said, the universe owes you one and, frankly, I'm pretty sure it owes all of us."

Jeff considers it and gives a shrug of his own. "What the hell," he says, pulling John down to him. "Call Delenn," he says against John's lips. "Tell her that we've decided to call in the universe's marker." 

"Already did," John says, his hands working at Jeff's robes. "She's on her way. I promised I'd get you ready."

"Well, then," Jeff holds out his arms. "Feel free. Minbari don't take it well when you break a promise."

*

He doesn't know. Isn't sure. There are too many mysteries and too many questions, but that's the thing about life.

There are always questions and the greatest of those are the ones we ask of ourselves.

Besides, he needs something to do. Solving the mystery of his own reappearance just might be it.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Me and Thee](https://archiveofourown.org/works/628798) by [nenya_kanadka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nenya_kanadka/pseuds/nenya_kanadka)




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